Friday, January 03, 2014

Pope Francis celebrates Mass at Jesuit mother church

Pope
Francis celebrated Mass on Friday morning in the mother church of the
Jesuit order, the church of the Gesù, to mark the Feast of the Holy Name
of Jesus and to give thanks for the enrollment of the first Jesuit to
be ordained a priest, Fr Peter Faber SJ, in the list of the saints.In
his homily, Pope Francis spoke of the particular way in which the
Jesuit Order is marked – and desires to be signed - by the name of
Jesus: “To march,” he said, “beneath the standard of His Cross.”

Pope
Francis went on to explain that this means sharing in and having
Christ’s very own sentiments. “It means,” he said, “to think like Him,
to love like Him, to see [things the way He sees them], to walk like Him
– it means doing what He did, and with the same sentiments He had, with
the sentiments of His heart.”Pope Francis went on to discuss
the great example of his holy confrere, St Peter Faber, whose sainthood
the Holy Father officially recognized and proclaimed on December 17th
of last year.

“Under the guidance of St. Ignatius,” explained Pope
Francis, “[the man who would become St Peter Faber, SJ] learned to
combine his restless - but also sweet and even,” said Pope Francis,
“exquisite sensitivity, with the ability to make decisions: he was a man
of great desires.”

Pope Francis said, “he recognised his desires and he
owned them. Indeed, for Faber, it is precisely in the moment in which
difficult things are proposed, that the true spirit that moves to action
manifests itself.”